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Le français suit-------

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The conference "NASA's Search for Life Beyond the Solar System", will start at 7:30 PM and last about 1 hour. It will be presented in English.

The Grandes Conférences de l'iREx are aimed at anyone interested by astronomy and exoplanets, and require no prior scientific background. Learn more about iREx: www.exoplanetes.umontreal.ca/

Abstract

One of the grandest and most enduring questions in human history has been whether we are alone in the Universe. While previous generations could only speculate about the possibility of life around other stars, in the coming decades NASA will develop and deploy the telescopes required to begin exploring the environments of distant worlds. But getting these challenging observations alone is not enough - we also need an improved understanding of what we should be looking for, and research that will allow us to interpret what we observe. In this talk Prof. Meadows will give an overview of current and upcoming NASA missions that will study potentially habitable planets and search for signs of life. She will also highlight work being done by the NASA Astrobiology Institute's Virtual Planetary Laboratory to guide this search - including understanding the factors that lead to a planet being able to support life, and how we might recognize signs of alien life on a distant world.